EA statement on Battlefield franchise

Comments

I must admit 7 Million is more than what I was expecting. It may be noted somewhere but they said units sold. They count sales as sales to retailers not to end customers. So without knowing the direct digital sales. That number could be and I stress COULD BE misleading unless they confirmed that the number was sales to end players not. Sales to stores. But as I said I fully admit I’m a little surprised. I was expecting around 5 million. It most likely would have been if not for the permanent reduction in sales price. We may get more player numbers at some point. They also have no excuse to hold back population numbers from battlefield tracker.

Well they said it was 1 million under because it didn't have battle royal. So now that's what they're hoping will make up the difference in March.

Forward-Looking Statements
Some statements set forth in this document, including the information relating to EA’s fiscal year
2019 and fiscal year 2020 guidance and title slates, contain forward-looking statements that are
subject to change. Statements including words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “expect,” “intend,”
“estimate”, “plan”, “predict”, “seek”, “goal”, “will”, “may”, “likely”, “should”, “could” (and the
negative of any of these terms), “future” and similar expressions also identify forward-looking
statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and
reflect management’s current expectations. Our actual results could differ materially from those
discussed in the forward-looking statements.

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

If EA ships 4 million physical PS4, Xbox One and pc units to retailers they show up on the balance sheet as units sold. It doesn't mean those retailers sold a single copy. They could sit on the shelves until the end of time and they still count as revenue for EA because the retailers have to pay them for those units whether they sell or not.

EA did a product dump during the holidays, retailers got caught holding the bag and were forced to sell them at a 60% discount a mere six days after release because people weren't buying the game. They weren't buying the game with or without the discount.

EA didn't drop the price, retailers did because at that point they just wanted to break even.

People would genuinely have been happier with bot matches than singleplayer campaigns.

You know what is really sad and makes at least my head shake ?
How so much of the environment and gameplay of the Singleplayer was so much more interesting than its equivalent in Multiplayer!
The Tiger in " The Last Tiger " was just right in the feeling what a powerful vehicle you are using. With needing just one shot for a Staghound and not four like in Multiplayer.... ( and yes i know about balance in Multiplayer but right now its just ridiculous )
The North Africa aka SAS campaign had more interesting and diverse terrain than the multiplayer Hamada and Areodrome maps.
And why cant i see any maps with dense woods, Castles and interesting fortifications like in the Tirailleur campaign ?!

BFV is now like some Fast Food menu you get at a Saturday night after leaving the club/pub and before going home. All shiny on the pictures in the windows of the store but just sad looking when you see it on your table with your own eyes.

That's partially true. The single player is pretty bad, especially compared to COD WW2 campaign. 4 more maps for multi or Battle Royale at lauch instead of this solo campaign would have help sales.

But its seems BFV will be support through 2020, and this is really a good news.

The real point here is, while you say, "Single player is bad..." The unfortunate reality, is that the single player was their priority...

which they did poorly.

also, see my sig.

Well that's the point. That was just a flat out lie imo. That two hour campaign must've taken them a month to complete, out of a two year schedule.

It had nothing to do with the campaign, or Battle Royale nobody wanted but Level Cap and Jack Frags In fact, DICE would be very much helping themselves, to shut them off, and bar them from their premises lol.

Battlefield doesn't even seem to fit in with the games EA wants to release. They want the really young players from FortNite etc. Apex and FIFA look a lot easier at the moment for EA.

It's all about shiny, easy-peasy gameplay, whacky skins and goofy carton-like childish themes. Get loads of kids addicted to your games, flog 'em loads of rubbish and do a runner. Then release another one and do it all again.

I must admit 7 Million is more than what I was expecting. It may be noted somewhere but they said units sold. They count sales as sales to retailers not to end customers. So without knowing the direct digital sales. That number could be and I stress COULD BE misleading unless they confirmed that the number was sales to end players not. Sales to stores. But as I said I fully admit I’m a little surprised. I was expecting around 5 million. It most likely would have been if not for the permanent reduction in sales price. We may get more player numbers at some point. They also have no excuse to hold back population numbers from battlefield tracker.

Be it physical, or be it digital, each license sold is a unit. Anyhow after reading the earnings report, I'm impressed. The game is moving in the right direction, and as such, we may get more content in the future then I was expecting.
Last week, Dave Sirland tweeted that they were in really good shape as far as player counts go, and that Dice was going to do their best to go on a two patch per month cadence to squash as many bugs as possible because they feel that will pull in even more players.

Its not and i have to admit: i dont care any longer. Even more than that, i want them to fail. I am just sick to see how they screwed up almost everything with this game.
Its really insane. A Battlefield game with a WW2 scenario. That alone would be the biggest fundament for a game that should sell itself like sliced bread.
But instead they focused on every stupidity that is a red flag. While totally ignoring any point that made their previous game successful.
Right now i can only imagine that right from the start up to the release it happenend this way:

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

to be fair, the tech sector in general has been on a nosedive, other studios were down as well. but albeit EA did manage to out nosedive even them all in comparison. the other part you mention leads me to think, if you have a title you think might flop, (think bf5 launch drama) why wouldnt you set yourself up to "push it" into a heavier competing release window, and then blame it on that. bonus points for pushing through fiscal year. so i imagine investors are like wtf, wait. so now the marketing train starts ...its misleading, all of it.

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

to be fair, the tech sector in general has been on a nosedive, other studios were down as well. but albeit EA did manage to out nosedive even them all in comparison. the other part you mention leads me to think, if you have a title you think might flop, (think bf5 launch drama) why wouldnt you set yourself up to "push it" into a heavier competing release window, and then blame it on that. bonus points for pushing through fiscal year. so i imagine investors are like wtf, wait. so now the marketing train starts ...its misleading, all of it.

It's an entertaining theory but I think they really want to release BF bi-annually in time for Christmas similar to FIFA which is annual. BF to EA is like FIFA. It's their FIFA war game.

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

You are absolutely wrong about EA stock taking a major nose dive due to this game. EA stock took a major nose dive because they were heavily invested in Teck stock, which took a major nose dive. I work for a major corporation that also suffered the same fate as EA and we're in the glass fiber business. Speak the facts, I notice you tend to theory craft quite a bit. So do quite a few others around here.

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

to be fair, the tech sector in general has been on a nosedive, other studios were down as well. but albeit EA did manage to out nosedive even them all in comparison. the other part you mention leads me to think, if you have a title you think might flop, (think bf5 launch drama) why wouldnt you set yourself up to "push it" into a heavier competing release window, and then blame it on that. bonus points for pushing through fiscal year. so i imagine investors are like wtf, wait. so now the marketing train starts ...its misleading, all of it.

It's an entertaining theory but I think they really want to release BF bi-annually in time for Christmas similar to FIFA which is annual. BF to EA is like FIFA. It's their FIFA war game.

there is no doubt thats their intent development wise, but the revenue isnt there to support it. i just think its bad taste to blame a clustered release window. i mean that was honestly best case scenario in retrospect. if this game launched as it did prior to the holiday, it would still have to be heavily discounted to attract the holiday money. so win for execs thinking they got it figured out, and lose for developers who will be advised by same execs who actually dont.

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

You're are absolutely wrong about EA stock taking a major nose dive due to this game. EA stock took a major nose dive because they were heavily invested in Teck stock, which took a major nose dive. I work for a major corporation that also suffered the same fate as EA and we're in the glass fiber business. Speak the facts, I notice you tend to theory craft quite a bit. So do quite a few others around here.

EA did take hits soley for the launch being pushed, obviously its not the sum of all its negative but very much a contributing factor. not their tech investments

It's nothing to thumb your nose at, if it wasn't half price lol. Which is to say, they took a huge loss on this, as compared to BF4 or BF1 lets say, at full price, and premium sales doubling the price.

As far as "customer trust", that sounds nice, unless you're having to spend millions on extra content, many will not buy, being you don't have premium, or play, being you don't have the counts. Count currently, number 18 in "most played" game on Xbox. And seeing "Ark Survival" has it beat pretty handily in that category,, i don't know how many players could be possibly playing this game to warrant the content.

And dont forget they wont get much more money out of BF V. All their plans to get it buy selling cosmetics ? Well for that you not only need good looking or interesting cosmetics without going full Fortnite style but before that you need a solid base game.
Who will spend ( enough ) money on Skins when there are bearly new maps ? Or interesting gameplay ? No new factions ? RSP ? Anticheat ?
EA just looked at Fortnite and other titles, seeing the sales numbers by cosmetics and wanted to copy that. Without understanding what was the real base for that success: a working, fun game for its players. ( and no i dont like Fortnite, i despise it. )

In that, the rest of the story, is EA as a whole stocks took a major nosedive, primarily due to this game.

So, then you add the equation, on what EA may want DICE to do given these circumstances, to prevent more shareholders bailing out. So, from a business standpoint looking at these numbers, would you be encouraging DICE for new content for this game? As much as i'd want to see it, i think they'd have to crazy.

Look, we tried. We all have given our opinions, even ad nauseum on what could save our game, and make it better. DICE seems to think, Battle Royale was the answer, instead of a two hour linear target practice campaign. One would think that comment was demented and insane, not to mention, purely out of touch. In short, it's not looking good as far as new content.

to be fair, the tech sector in general has been on a nosedive, other studios were down as well. but albeit EA did manage to out nosedive even them all in comparison. the other part you mention leads me to think, if you have a title you think might flop, (think bf5 launch drama) why wouldnt you set yourself up to "push it" into a heavier competing release window, and then blame it on that. bonus points for pushing through fiscal year. so i imagine investors are like wtf, wait. so now the marketing train starts ...its misleading, all of it.

It's an entertaining theory but I think they really want to release BF bi-annually in time for Christmas similar to FIFA which is annual. BF to EA is like FIFA. It's their FIFA war game.

there is no doubt thats their intent development wise, but the revenue isnt there to support it. i just think its bad taste to blame a clustered release window. i mean that was honestly best case scenario in retrospect. if this game launched as it did prior to the holiday, it would still have to be heavily discounted to attract the holiday money. so win for execs thinking they got it figured out, and lose for developers who will be advised by same execs who actually dont.

I think what the said about "a competitive release over the holidays"- or whatever it was - meant that it didn't work this time but they may try something almost exactly the same again. Or even that Battlefield just doesn't sell well at Christmas in a b-annual release schedule.

They did also seem to say that they won't give up on trying to get more value out of BF in terms of managing it's lifespan etc.

BFV does still look messy though. But they may have been expecting that and that's why they chose the SP over BR so that BR doesn't suffer from being devalued by the Christmas thing that just happened.